Here's something ultra-nerdy but incredibly fun: you can hack your Kindle to work as a display for a tiny portable computer like the Raspberry Pi.

That's exactly what Gef Tremblay did on a recent trip to Europe where he was travelling light: he took just a Kindle, a camera, an android phone and a Raspberry Pi. While it might sounds incredible, Tremblay actually envisioned getting real work done with that bare-bones quantity of kit. He explains:

The plan was, using a Kindle as a screen, connecting it to the processing power of the Raspberry Pi while using an external keyboard to work comfortably. Since connecting an external keyboard to the Kindle seemed impossible at that point, I needed to use the Raspberry Pi as the ‘hub'. The tinkering started and the KindleBerry Pi was soon to be born.

With some fairly involved hacking of the Kindle, he was able to get it up and running as a screen for the Pi—and even used the setup as his main computer for a couple of weeks. Sadly, he doesn't mention being able to use the Kindle's 3G, but then, you can't win them all. It's not the most straightforward project in the world but, hey, it might be fun to try. [Gef Tremblay via MAKE]